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Bringing the crack since December 2003

Thanos has a cool Yule

Yup, Jim Starlin gave the guy who makes the Grinch look like an amateur a Christmas story... Sort of.. in this story from the 1992 Marvel Holiday Special

Thanos is clearing out a number of his old lairs, as there is a lot of stuff lying around he doesn't want getting into the general circulation

One of his servitor robots walks past with a box of odds and ends when the big boss stops it.

Thanos recalls that this used to belong to Gamora, the girl he trained to be the ultimate loyal bodyguard and super-assassin. To do this he knew he couldn't just raise her as a mindless drone, he needed someone who would serve him out of genuine love and devotion, because those always seem to get better results, and so....

Isn't she adorable? (and Thanos sitting next to a Christmas tree is awesome, it's just a shame he didn't dress as Santafor her)

Thanos hesitates, he has a lot of work to do, and Gamoraassures him that it doesn't really matter.(Thanos as workaholic dad is not a comparison it would ever have occurred to me to make)

A while later, there is an intruder in the base.... an alien who is out for revenge on Thanos for killing his family and who sneaks in undetected. He prowls the corridors of the base, until he comes across Thanos in his office (designing a new deathray or whatever). Present day Thanos wryly notes that it was a more innocent time, and his security has been markedly improved since then.

So Thanos is unaware of the threat behind him,

The shot goes wild, missing Thanso completely, and lets just say that given Thanos powers, the other guys hasn't even got time for a second shot before he's incinerated. It happens so quick;ly in fact that the doll gets caught in the blast.

Wibble.... And even more of a wibble when Thanos' next action is to tell Gamora, that yes they WILL go to the lagoon to watch the dolphins. Though now looking back at it, Thanos realises that it was at this moment that he should have realised Gamora would never be the ultimate soulless killing machine he wanted. "C'est la vie"... or in his case perhaps, C'est la Mort"

We return to the present, as thanos now throws the doll into the garbage pile for incineration, musing....

...and they say that Thanos heart shrank three sizes that day.

Next time, a rather different story, as Steve Rogers discovers a secret about his oldest friend...

I love how he pauses before telling the robot how they... ...celebrated certain holidays, like he is almost confessing on something he's not particular proud or even embarrased of having done.

Like it's a dirty family secret, or something.

Also, pre-christian yule kinda looses it's meaning when you can just fly your battlecruiser to another planet with a current summer season.

On a more serious note, it was a shame that the young Gamorra & Thanos stories never had a deeper impact on the Infinity Watch stories as a whole, and that the relationship never was expanded on. I could easily have seen myself buy another cosmic marvel comic if it had featured those two characters.

They never particularly explain why two aliens picked Christmas, do they. I mean, Gamora never even visited Earth until she grew up. You'd think Thanos would have picked traditional Zen Whoberi holidays to celebrate with her, or Titanian ones (which I assume would be just like ancient Greek festival days, but with lasers).

He probably went nuts over the Day of the Dead, though. Baked her thousands of those sugar skulls.

Plus, Thanos has gone up against heroes from Earth in the past, so maybe it was just at the forefront of his mind when he chose.

I also like this story; It makes Thanos a much more three dimensional character than his DC counterpart Darkseid (who, while boss when written properly, is always Evil McEvilton), this shows that while, yes, Thanos is a massive prick most of the time, he can also be a real nice guy once in a blue moon.

How well I remember my parents celerating Zagultob in the traditional manner, throwing roasted krulnup at each other whilst reciting Vittic carols. And how we laughed come St Grapnilizt Day, snorbing our bregels on the front lawn.

Well, we only laughed because we weren't Orthodox Grapniliztists of course.

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